of the Monarchy, and the overthrow of a tyrannical usurpation, was celebrated within our Castle walls with festive rejoicings.—[_p. 258._] It also appears that the loyalty of the Burgesses during the season of the adverse fortunes of the King, and the losses which they had incurred in consequence, did not pass unnoticed. The King liberally rewarded them. The official papers which attest this, allege as the reason for the royal bounty “the losses which they [the Burgesses of Bridgnorth] had sustained in the time when the kingdom was disturbed, and because they faithfully adhered to the King, and to Edward, his son, in the time aforesaid.”—[_p. 309._] The wise and energetic measures, which Edward adopted, when he succeeded to the throne, put an end to the civil dissensions by which the kingdom had been so long distracted; and this circumstance, as well as his having finally annexed the Principality of Wales to the British crown, prevented the necessity of his making those military expeditions into the border counties, which had been so customary in the reigns of his predecessors. But Edward II. proved as feeble as his father had been vigorous in his government of the kingdom, and the consequence was, that in a short time after his accession the realm was disturbed by a renewal of intestine feuds, and rebellion soon raged from one end of the kingdom to the other. A second confederacy of the Barons against the king, which was formed for the purpose of enforcing on him the banishment of his favorites, the Despencers, took place in the year 1321, and this brought about another siege of Bridgnorth Castle.